


A Helping Hand

by emlee2



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura is schemeing and we love her for that, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29847006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emlee2/pseuds/emlee2
Summary: Allura knows Keith needs help running his father's flower shop. She also knows Keith is far too stubborn to ask for it.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44
Collections: Sheithlentines 2021





	A Helping Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shialatier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shialatier/gifts).



> Hi hi hi! I'm so excited to share my Sheithlentines w/ y'all! Thank you @shialatier for participating, I loved working on this project for you, hope you enjoy!

“You need help.”

“No.” 

“Keith,” Allura starts, rearranging the botanical lip balms that line the cashier’s counter by order of color. 

“Pops left me this shop when it was just him, I’ll run the shop with just me,” Keith says, taking note of what he’s going to need to place orders for. 

“Your father ran this shop when my father was one of the only frequent customers,” the woman says, her voice soft, “Your client base has grown, it’s normal to need extra hands.”

Keith doesn’t give her the satisfaction of a response, clicking his pen shut and shoving the cashier’s notebook into one of the pockets on his apron. There’s too much work that he has to finish before he can even think of writing an ad. Besides, how could he expect some stranger to know enough about how his shop functions? It would take forever to instill the kind of knowledge that he’s collected over his lifetime. 

“They could start by helping you with the clerical work,” she offers, “Working the register so you could spend more time on arrangements.” 

He hates that she can so easily decipher what he’s thinking, it drives him insane. 

Allura drums her perfectly manicured nails against the stone countertop, “I have an ad that I could run in the newspaper, if you’d like.” 

Of course she’d be a step ahead and already have something written up. 

“Do what you want,” he grumbles, lifting the hose from its place on the wall with more force than strictly necessary, “I don’t care.” 

“Great, I ran it this Sunday.” she pulls a piece of paper from her purse and plucks a pen from the mason jar next to the register, writing down the page number of the newspaper and sliding it across the counter. 

“Allura, you can’t just-”

“Except I did,” she interrupts, tossing her long ponytail over her shoulder, “You can thank me when you make it to bed before midnight.” 

Keith can’t argue with that. At this point, the coffee pot is running from the moment he walks in to the moment he leaves, yet is always empty with how fast he’s been drinking it. He certainly doesn’t mind the ease with which he’s been falling asleep each night, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he could stay asleep for an extra hour instead of waking up to finish the work he had left the night before. 

Maybe he’d even have time to take Kosmo on the long runs he loves so much. The giant mutt had been growing lazy, spending his long afternoons in any patch of sunlight he can find within the shop in between begging customers for treats. 

He sprays down the leaves of the massive monstera that lives in the picture window, inspecting his oldest plant for pests. It would be nice to have some more time to spend on the plants instead of the clerical work. They certainly aren’t suffering, but Keith hadn’t been able to provide as much care as he’d like to. 

As if she can hear his thoughts, Allura pipes up, “So should I schedule some interviews?”

Keith stares at the mutt laying on the ground by the door, “What do you think, boy? Are you willing to make a new friend?” 

His tongue lolls out of his mouth happily, tail thumping against the floor. Another person to slip him treats wouldn’t be a problem at all.

“Go ahead, Allura.” 

She smiles to herself, a pleased, private thing, “About damn time.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Keith plucks his shears from their loop at his hip, pointing them at his best friend, “You ever do something again and I’m leaving your poor, overwatered plants to die.”

“You would never,” she gasps, a hand covering her chest in feigned surprise. 

He doesn’t grant her the satisfaction of confirming her taunt. 

-

Three days later, the bell hanging from the doorway chimes and Keith calls out from the back, “Just a second!”

His hands are full of vines that he’s twisting around a moss pole, gently pinning them in place with small anchors beneath the aerial nodes. His apron is covered in soil and more hair hangs in his face than in the elastic that he had borrowed from Allura the week before, but he’s sure that the customer won’t mind. If they do, he doesn’t care. 

Once the bundle is secured in the wire, he wipes his hands clean on the towel hanging from his pocket and makes his way to the front of house, tossing the cloth over his shoulder as he pushes the door open, “Hi, what can I-”

The man standing at the counter is hardly a man at all, tall and breathtakingly gorgeous, he’s more of a god if Keith were to be tasked with his description. Stark white hair falls into his eyes, the longest part ending just above a scar that bisects his nose. A white t-shirt is pulled tight across his chest, a thick flannel covering his arms. It doesn’t do anything to hide the sheer amount of muscle beneath the sleeves.

Keith stands, frozen in place, his mouth twitching around whatever word was about to make it’s exit from his lips. 

“Uh, hi, I’m here about the ad in the newspaper?” 

“Newspaper…” Keith whispers, fingers twitching at his side. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Huh?”

The man stares back at him, brows dropping as he narrows his eyes. Keith is lost in how warm his eyes are, hopelessly enamored by the slight smile that pushes them to wrinkle into little crow’s feet at their corners. 

“I- oh! The uh, the job-” Keith stammers, shuffling his feet as he tries to navigate around the delivery boxes behind the counter. 

The next thing Keith knows, there’s peonies seemingly rushing towards the ceiling and cold cement rushing at him from the ground. Falling seems to take forever, a slow motion tumble from his place at the counter. 

It’s only when the ground recedes that Keith realizes his tumble had ceased and that, instead of pressing a forceful kiss to the cement floors, he had been wrapped in the arms of the perfect stranger in his flower shop. 

“Woah, are you okay?” The man, the handsome, handsome man asks him. Up close Keith realizes that his eyes are an astonishing shade of silver that he can’t help but admire. 

“Uh-” Keith curses himself, swearing up and down in his mind that he’s capable of a coherent thought beyond monosyllabic utterances. He pulls himself from the strangers arms and crosses his own flannel clad arms across his chest, “Thanks, I’m good. Just a little stumble.”

The man holds his hands up as he gushes placations and for the first time Keith notices the shining metal of his prosthesis. His eyes hover over the fingers, marvelling at the intricate mechanics at play for the man to have full autonomy over his fingers. He spots the slight crease of tags beneath the shirt and feels his own brush cool over his skin. 

“Which branch,” Keith asks, nodding to the general area of gorgeous chest. 

He smiles, warm and bright, “Air force. Were you military?” 

Keith snorts, “Barely, I just needed someone to pay for medical training and Army said they would.” 

It earns him a laugh and he can’t help the warm curl of butterflies in his stomach at the sound, “I won’t hold that against you.”

His traitorous mind supplies a very unhelpful, but you could if you wanted to _, as he comes to the realization that he is fully gawking at this man without even knowing his name. His cheeks flush, “What did you say your name was?”_

_Too keen, the man smirks, “I didn’t, but it’s Takashi. My friends call me Shiro.”_

_“Okay Takashi, when are you able to start?”_

_At this, the smile falls, “Don’t you want to interview me?”_

_“I already did, but if you’re going to question my every decision, I could always withdraw the offer-”_

_“No!” Shiro interrupts, “No, I would love the job, I can start whenever?”_

_“Okay,” Keith unties the apron at his waist and hands it over to Shiro, “There’s a box of cuttings in the back room, take it out to the curb.”_

_After a moment of shocked silence from the former airman, Keith adds in a, “Please.”_

_It’s enough to jolt him into motion, taking the apron and hurriedly tying it over his jeans, “I- okay, yes sir.”_

_“Don’t call me sir,” Keith grumbles, walking over to the fragrant display of gardenias to select a few stems for one of Allura’s arrangements._

_For both of their sakes, he ignores the quiet, “Yes sir,” that follows._

_-_

_Hours pass and the sun makes a clear arc across the sky, light shifting from the windows in the storefront to the windows of the employees-only greenhouse beautifully as the golden hour of early spring settles in. There’s a chill that makes Keith tug his flannel around him while he pulls the rubbish bins to the curb, but he finds that he doesn’t mind._

_Shiro is inside, talking softly on the phone with a customer that called just before Keith locked the doors for the evening. Despite knowing little about the inner workings of the shop, he had taken to it without a hitch. When he hangs up the phone, he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his apron and rocks back and forth from heel to toe, “So, anything else you need me to do?”_

_Keith looks to the shop, noting the clean floors and full displays, something that he would normally be tending to into the late hours of the evening after he finished the arrangements for the day. But, with Shiro standing at the counter and chatting with customers as they move in and out of the store, taking phone calls, handling the clerical aspect of being a florist, Keith had the entire day to actually_ be _a florist._

_His gut curls at the thought of having to admit this to Allura._

_“You have anywhere to be?”_

_“I can stay if there’s something that you need me to-”_

_“No,” Keith crosses his arms over his chest, protective of his racing heart, “No, we’re done for the day, I was going to offer to buy you dinner.”_

_Silence hangs between them and Keith realizes the implications of the invitation, “As thanks!” He rushes to clarify, not willing to cross a line so soon into having some competent help._

_“Oh,” Shiro flushes, his shoulders sagging, “Yeah, that would be nice.”_

_“Great, I hope you don’t mind vegetarian food?”_

_He smiles and Keith wonders how he’s ever going to get used to it, “Not at all.”_

_The younger man nods, tilting his chin towards the door as he grabs his keys, flipping all the lights of the shop, save for the ones illuminating his picture windows, as they walk towards the door._

_Shiro holds it open for him and he resists the urge to roll his eyes at the needless act of chivalry, paying no heed to the seemingly ever present butterflies against his ribs._

_“So,” the taller man starts, dragging out the vowel. “Are you from the area?”_

_Keith shakes his head, “Nope, my mother’s family is, though. Pops came here for her, left after she passed, then moved back to be close to family.”_

_“Ah, same here. Well,” he laughs, backtracking, “Not the family. Or the mom! Which, I'm so sorry, I just came here because a friend of mine insisted on it.”_

_Keith laughs, surprising himself with the ease it comes. “Sounds like a good friend, it’s nice around here,” he hums, watching as the street lamps flicker on over the smooth walkways._

_“She’s great, yeah,” Shiro’s face softens with his words, “Stubborn as hell and too smart for her own good though.”_

_“I know that type,” he laughs, “That’s actually why there was an ad in the paper for a job in the shop.”_

_Shiro looks at him, a crease starting to form between his eyebrows, “Really? It was my friend that told me to come see about the job.”_

_Keith stops and turns his body towards his companion, “No.”_

_“You don’t think…?”_

_“Allura.”  
Shiro’s eyes widen comically, “There wouldn’t happen to be two, would there?”_

_He’s already pulling his phone from his pocket even as Shiro tries to rationalize the situation. The line rings as both of their cheeks color in the low evening light. A pop of static and Allura’s voice comes over the line, clear as a bell, “Before you yell at me, isn’t he cute?!”_

_“Allura-”_

_“He’s single, Keith, trust me.”_

_“Allura-”_

_“And he’ll love Kosmo!”_

_“Allura!”_

_The line is silent. Keith stares at Shiro, rolls his eyes, and grumbles, “Thanks.” Before he can hear a pleased laugh peal from the call, he presses the red button to silence his best friend._

_They walk the rest of the way to the restaurant trading embarrassing stories of their mutual friend and Keith finds himself at peace with Allura’s insistent attempts at matchmaking._

_Though, he ignores the knowing texts that await him when his phone turns on after hours spent talking with his new employee._

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/yolkswagen2)


End file.
